Investigations
by pika318
Summary: Chiho is convinced by a friend to investigate the school attic. What she finds there, together with a mysterious recording, tells her that what happened there is related to Ente Isla.
1. Investigations

**pika318: **We're back again with another Hataraku Maou-sama fic! It's Lucifer related again, as usual. moko-chan wrote this, but she said she didn't have the courage to post it, so I'm doing it for her.

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><p><strong>One shot: <strong>Investigations

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><p><em>Groan...why am I here again?<em>

Second year Sasazuka high student, Sasaki Chiho, thought this as she dragged her feet, following her best friend, Matsuhara Hina, through the school building.

Normally, Chiho would not complain about being in school since she quite enjoyed it but she was currently there under unusual circumstances.

Firstly, both she and Hina were not wearing their school uniforms. Instead, they were wearing casual summer clothing. Secondly, it was late at night, when most students have gone home.

Just the day before, Hina had convinced Chiho (although one could argue that it was almost emotional blackmail) to pay the school a visit at night because she wanted to investigate something. Chiho only agreed because she felt that if she did not follow, her friend might do something completely reckless and get into trouble or worse, get herself hurt.

"You know, I had to lie to my mom and say that I was just staying over at your house because your parents are overseas and you were lonely." Chiho said with a troubled smile.

"You're not lying. Every bit of that was true." Hina replied cheerfully.

"I didn't tell her we were sneaking into school at night."

"You didn't have to."

"You never told me exactly why you are doing this. ..."Chiho muttered.

"I did. I said I wanted to investigate something." Her friend said cryptically.

"Investigate what?!"

"I told you before you know...Our janitor said that a few months ago that he started hearing sounds on the top floor of the school. Weird people talking and everything. He even heard screaming sometimes. It freaked him out so much that he had nightmares."

"And you're only investigating now?" Chiho asked, bewildered.

"Well, it's near the summer holidays meaning we have no club activities so we'll have the time and energy to investigate. And you don't have any night shifts either."

"Ugh..." Chiho groaned again and just wished for the investigation to be quickly over and done with.

Slowly, the two girls made their way near the top of the school building.

"We're here~~~" Hina said in a sing song voice.

"This...is the attic?"

"Yep. Todoh-san said the sounds were coming from here. The attic used to be a store room but everything got cleared out a few years back and it was never used after that."

Chiho looked surprised. She never knew about such a thing even though she had been in the school for more than a year.

"Oh...and there's rumors that it's haunted. ..."

"Eh...I kind of expected that." Chiho commented.

"Boo... you're no fun. I thought Chi-chan would be terrified." Hina pouted after hearing the less than energetic response from her friend.

"I've seen...quite a lot of terrifying things lately." Chiho gave a forced smile after saying that.

"And here I thought 'fear of scary things' would be your moe factor."

"Moe? Wait, don't explain, I don't want to know."

Hina grinned at Chiho's response but decided not to tease her any further.

"Shall we go in?"

"Yes...The faster we go in and investigate...the faster we can leave."

Thus, Hina pushed open the door. It was unlocked just as the school janitor had told her.

A strong musty smell wafted out of the entrance. Chiho quickly covered her nose and mouth with a handkerchief in an attempt to block out the smell. Hina just covered her nose and mouth with her arm.

"Ew..."

The two girls stepped into the attic leaving the door open. Hina pulled out a flashlight from her pocket and started pointing it around.

With the limited artificial light, the first thing that Chiho noticed was empty juice and drink containers, empty snack bags and other plastic bags lying around.

_I guess that's what caused the stink._ Chiho thought to herself. She followed her friend as she walked to the sides of the room, shining the torch at every nook and cranny.

"Woah, the wood at this area looks like it got punched in."Hina commented, pointing at a certain section of the room. Chiho shifted closer to get a better look. Indeed, there was a hemispherical depression in the wall, about the same diameter as a basketball.

"Chi-chan, take a photo of that." Hina said, excitedly.

"Huh? Why?"

"You're the one with the digital camera."

"Hina, I'm pretty sure you can take the photo with your phone." Chiho said, slightly irritated.

"Phone cameras don't have good quality."Hina retorted.

"...fine." Chiho wanted to argue that most smart phones nowadays probably had a quality comparable to her camera bit decided against it as it would take up too much time. She pulled out her camera from her waist pouch and took a single picture of the depression.

Hina continued to happily skip to another part of the room to investigate.

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><p><em>10 minutes later...<em>

"Well, that's all I guess." Chiho said, relieved that it was over.

"Hai. ..I thought we would find more things but the only strange thing was that hole."

"Maybe...it's just a case of homeless people that found their way here and lived here for a while?" Chiho suggested.

"If that was the case, then how would they get food without anyone noticing? There's a guard at the school gate."

"Using the same way as how we got in without anyone noticing. Through the hole in the back fence that no one bothered to fix."

"But that's something that only the students know! "Hina exclaimed stubbornly. "Maybe they left through that window." She pointed at the single rather large windows directly opposite of the entrance.

"Hina ... this is the fourth floor. It's not as if they can fly..." Chiho suddenly paused. She did know certain people who could fly.

"Chi-chan? "Hina asked, frowning at the sudden silence.

"Uh...huh? Nothing, it's nothing. I mean. Humans can't fly, right?" Chiho exclaimed.

"I guess not." Then Hina clapped her hands together. "I know. Why don't you ask your reliable senpai about this? "

"Reliable...you mean Maou-san?"

"Yeah. You told him about that weird earthquake that only you felt right? I'm sure you can talk to him about this." Hina said, grinning like a cat.

"I guess ..." Chiho said, laughing bitterly.

_Now she thinks Maou-san is some occult pro…well, he is a member of the occult after all..._

"Oh. And ask him about this recording too."

"Huh?" Chiho tilted her head in confusion. Hina had not mentioned anything about any recording since the start of their little adventure.

"Todoh-san sent me a recording of what he heard. I can't understand what the people that were recorded were saying though. "

"Aren't you going to play the recording?"

"No way. It's too creepy to hear it in this atmosphere. I'll just bluetooth it to you." Hina said while pressing a few buttons on her phone.

"Right..."

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><p>"I think…it might be related to Ente Isla." That was what Chiho had said when she let her reliable senpai, also the Demon King, listen to the recording.<p>

"Eh? What makes you say that?" It was quite sudden so Maou did not grasp what was happening.

It was a normal day at work for him. Just the same old getting up in the morning, going to work, Chiho coming in in the afternoon and so on. Then while he was on break, Chiho popped into the break room and told him about her little adventure. Maou had of course chided her for doing something so dangerous, especially since both she and her friend were young girls. Chiho thanked him for his concern and then started fiddling with her phone which started playing a short audio clip.

"Well, it's because the language that was used in this sounds an awful lot like what I heard when Albertio communicated with me by accident." Chiho said.

Maou frowned and suddenly looked very serious.

"Let me hear that again."

Chiho pressed the center button on her phone and held it close to Maou's ear.

As Maou listened, his brows seemed to crease more and more. The sound stopped.

"Is it related?"Chiho asked apprehensively.

"Is there anything else?"

"Oh yeah. I took a picture while I was there. I have the picture in my phone."

Chiho pressed a few more buttons on her phone and then turned the display towards Maou.

"Look."

Maou stared at the image intently and started muttering something to himself. Then he paused.

"Thanks. Chi-chan. For showing me those things."

"So it's related to Ente Isla?"

"Yeah. But it's not terribly important so don't worry too much about it." Maou said smiling.

"Um ok...then I'm going back to work."

With that, Chiho put her phone in her locker and left the break room.

Meanwhile, Maou rubbed the bridge of his nose and said to himself:

"Guess 'he' has some answering to do."

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><p>"Welcome home, Demon-lord sama."<p>

Maou opened the door to the demon fortress, also known as apartment 202 of Villa Rosa and was greeted (as usual) by his loyal former demon general Ashiya.

"I'm back. What's for dinner?" Maou asked, out of habit.

"Nothing extravagant, my lord. Just some pickled vegetables, eggs and rice. Oh yes, and miso soup."

"Haha...it's not as though we can afford anything extravagant…hey Ashiya, that was a joke, you know." Maou commented, but quickly added that he meant it as a joke when he noticed Ashiya's depressed expression.

"By the way, is Urushihara still in the cabinet?"

"Where else would he be?" Ashiya rolled his eyes. They knew that if they did not see the fallen angel next to the window on his computer then he would be in the cabinet, still on his computer or sleeping. Maou was about to go towards the cabinet when Ashiya tugged at his arm.

"Ah, I advise you not to open the cabinet for now...he's sleeping." Ashiya warned with a worried look on his face.

Maou's eyes widened. Ashiya was never this concerned about Urushihara and sometimes he even wondered if Ashiya held some contempt against him.

"Ashiya…you're always complaining that he sleeps too much ...and now you're letting him sleep?"

"Yes. My lord, I can explain. .."

It was then when Maou noticed something out of place on Ashiya's hand.

"Ashiya, is that a bruise on your hand?"

"Yes. Lucifer slammed the cabinet door into my hand, so as I was saying..."

"He slammed the door into your hand and you're just letting it go?!" Maou asked, baffled by Ashiya's uncharacteristic behaviour.

"Let...me ...explain...what ...happened!"Ashiya hissed, irritated by quickly softened his tone. "My many apologies for snapping at you, my lord. But before you returned, Lucifer was displaying unusual behaviour."

"Eh...just tell me what happened…" Maou said, getting more and more confused by the minute.

"I heard him groaning in pain so I decided to open the cabinet door to see what's happening. I just saw him sleeping but he was clutching his chest so I thought he was having a nightmare or something. I woke him up and the next moment he shot up and slammed the door into my hand. Then as though he just realised what happened, he apologised and said he was having a nightmare. Then after that, he closed the door again and went back to sleep." Ashiya finished his long story.

Maou's jaw dropped. He still found it hard to believe that Ashiya would forgive Urushihara just like that.

"I still find it hard to believe that you...well...didn't do anything after that."

"My lord. If you saw the expression on his face, you wouldn't dare to do anything else."

"Expression?"

"Fear. There was fear on his face as though the worst of Hell 's fury was after him. Basically, he looked even more scared than the time when you punched him."

"Uh...right."

"So I think we should leave him alone for now."

"Ah...alright. That Urushihara has been hiding a lot of things from us huh?"Maou commented, looking at Ashiya for agreement.

"He's been hiding things from us since we met him and he expects us to trust him...when he doesn't trust us." Ashiya agreed, nodding. Maou noticed that he looked rather sad, probably because of Urushihara's lack of trust in them.

"Ah...I'll ask him about it after he wakes up then. There's a good chance it might be related to what I heard from Chi-chan today." Maou deduced.

Ashiya looked surprised, then the expression turned into confusion.

"What did Sasaki-san tell you today that made you think that?"

"Well…Chi-chan and her friend went to investigate her school yesterday…"

Maou then told Ashiya what Chiho had requested of him and what his deductions were. It's going to be a long talk after all.

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><p><strong>pika318: <strong>And this is it. For those who read "Research Notes", perhaps you can find some connections between both these fics. Hope all of you enjoyed reading this!


	2. Nightmare

**pika318: **Chapter 2 is here! After asking Moko-chan, the background of this fic is more based off 'Holding Back' and not 'Research Notes'. I hope everyone enjoys reading it!

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><p><strong>Chapter 2<strong>: Nightmare

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><p>It was late afternoon. As people started to head home from work or school or from whatever leisure activities they were doing, the amount of noise and activity started to increase on the roads of Sasazuka. The noise reached the ears of a particular young man living in room 201 of the sixty year old apartment, Villa Rosa.<p>

"Demon King-sama should be on his way back soon." The young man, Ashiya Shiro, also former demon general Alsiel, said to himself as he started putting diced vegetables into the pot.

With that task done, Alsiel went on to get some rice from his rice bucket to wash. After he gets that done, he would be able to take a short break until Maou comes home to get started on frying the eggs.

"Uh…"

Just then, he heard the other resident of the apartment, Urushihara, also known as the Fallen angel Lucifer, making a noise from the inside of the futon cabinet.

Given Urushihara's maladjusted sleeping habits, Ashiya knows that he's probably sleeping at the moment. Usually he wakes up on his own at the smell of dinner, but sometimes Ashiya would have to wake him up. Recently though, as they have been eating dinner with their next door neighbour, Suzuno, sometimes she would do this unpleasant task instead if Ashiya happened to be busy tending to the cooking. Sometimes, Ashiya felt quite disturbed that he could work so well with the person who is supposed to be his enemy when it came to cooking and Urushihara, but that was a topic for another day.

Anyway, regarding the current situation, as far as Ashiya's memories go, Urushihara was normally very quiet when he's asleep. So quiet that sometimes he would forget that the fallen angel is in the cabinet at all.

Ashiya turned towards the cabinet in slight confusion, but he heard no more noises. And since Urushihara has nothing to do with the dinner preparations, and he did have to finish the preparations before Maou came home, save for frying the eggs, Ashiya ignored the noise and went on to wash the rice, then he put the rice in the rice cooker and switched the appliance on.

Then he heard another noise from the cabinet. This time a bit louder.

"Ah..."

Ashiya turned towards the cabinet again and frowned.

_What in the world?_

Ashiya was familiar with that kind of sound. He heard the same sound before when he fought in the Demon Army. It was the cry that someone makes when they were wounded. Badly wounded.

Wiping his hands dry on a nearby towel, Ashiya quickly walked to the cabinet and slid the door open.

"Urushihara, what's wrong with…" Ashiya asked, in a slightly annoyed tone. But he stopped when he saw the other resident's appearance.

There was no doubt Urushihara had been sleeping. He was lying on his side and his laptop was shut. But to Ashiya's confusion, for someone who was supposed to be asleep, he looked to be in lots of pain. His eyes were squeezed shut and beads of sweat clung onto his pale skin. Both his hands gripped onto the front of his shirt tightly and he was making a pained whimpering sound.

"OI! Urushihara! What's wrong?" Now Ashiya sounded worried. He reached into the cabinet and shook the teenager's shoulder.

"Oi wake up! Urushihara, Urushihara…Lucifer!" After realising that Urushihara was not reacting to his Japanese alias, Ashiya, in desperation, used his actual name.

At this moment, Urushihara's eyes flew open and he shot up to a crouching position.

"!"

To Ashiya's surprise, the small youth suddenly pushed him hard and knocked him off balance. Ashiya quickly grabbed the side of the cabinet with his left hand to stop himself from falling on the tatami mats.

And then Ashiya's eyes widened in horror as the door rapidly slid close, too fast for him to react, and the edge of the door slammed onto his knuckles. Ashiya let out a yelp in pain and quickly put his right hand into the gap and yanked the door open again, removing the insult to his injury.

"**Lucifer! What in the blazes is wrong with you!"** Ashiya bellowed. He was not speaking in Japanese. In his anger, he had lapsed back to the language he used in Ente Isla. He was completely ready to drag Urushihara out of the closet and make his sit in the seiza position for at least 30 minutes for doing such a thing, but as he set his eyes on Urushihara, he quickly changed his mind.

Urushihara has backed up against the corner of the cabinet and was breathing hard. As he looked in Ashiya's direction because of the shout, Ashiya recognised the look that he had. It was the eyes of someone being hunted down. The same look that prey have when they have no way to run.

"Urushihara, what's wrong?" Ashiya reverted back to the Japanese language and was speaking in a gentler tone now.

This time, Urushihara actually looked at Ashiya in the eye and his breathing started to slow down. Then he said,

"This is Japan...right...I'm in Japan."

Ashiya frowned, confused at what Urushihara just said.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm fine...I just had a nightmare, that's all..." Urushihara's eyes trailed to Ashiya's left knuckle.

"Ah. Crap...d...did I just..." Urushihara pointed at Ashiya's currently bruised knuckle and stammered.

"Uh...don't worry about it, it's nothing." Ashiya said. Actually it hurt like hell, and he was worried that he might have a hairline fracture from that impact. But in the end, he had answered in a way which even he himself would admit that it was uncharacteristic of him to say that to ease Urushihara's fears, lest he go into another panic attack.

"I'm...sorry." Urushihara muttered as he used his shirt to wipe the sweat of his brow. After doing that, he curled up, putting his head on his knees. And from this distance, Ashiya could clearly see that he was still shivering slightly, unable to fully escape the terror which the nightmare, whatever it was, had caused him.

"I said don't worry about it." After saying that, Ashiya walked to the drawers on the other side of the apartment, grabbed a towel and a clean shirt and threw them at Urushihara. The towel and shirt flopped gently over Urushihara's head.

"Clean yourself up. You better change out as well before you catch a chill." Ashiya instructed.

"Thanks..." Urushihara raised a hand, removed the towel from on top of him and wiped his face with it. With the shift, the shirt fell at his feet.

Ashiya crossed his arms and then cautiously asked.

"You had a really bad nightmare huh?"

Urushihara did not even pause in his actions of putting down the towel and pulling his sweaty shirt over his head. It was only after he pulled the new shirt on did he speak,

"If you live as long as me, you're bound to encounter some really unpleasant things sooner or later."

"Oh..." Ashiya said. Then he sighed. He didn't have high hopes that Urushihara would explain anything about this nightmare, but the fact that the fallen angel really didn't want to talk about it still stung a bit. After all, they have been working alongside each other for a very long time, couldn't Urushihara see him as someone he could confide in, even just a little?

He saw Urushihara shift, clearly intending to get out of the cabinet so he could take the used towel and shirt to the laundry basket. Ashiya stretched out a hand in front of Urushihara.

"I'll take those. Just go back to sleep. I'll wake you up when it's time to eat." Ashiya said as he took the towel and shirt out of Urushihara's hands, then moved to slide the cabinet door shut.

"Eh?"

"You heard me." Then Ashiya slid the door to its closing position. But he left a little gap so that there would be some ventilation. And because he would be able to hear Urushihara better if something similar happened again.

After throwing the towel and shirt into the laundry basket, Ashiya rubbed his sore knuckles and moved to the kitchen counter to get the first aid kit to tend to his injury.

_I guess I need to tell Demon King-sama about this when he returns._

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><p><strong>pika318<strong>: That's all for chapter 2! Moko-chan is so mean, bullying Lucifer like this. Anyway, there's still a chapter 3 after this. Moko-chan didn't plan to have one until I convinced her to write one.


	3. Trivial

**Moko -chan**: Because I was coerced into writing this.

**pika318**: You guys should thank me ^_^ Anyway this is the last chapter.

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><p><strong>Chapter 3<strong>: Trivial

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><p>"Urushihara! "<p>

There was a light rapping on the cabinet door accompanied by Ashiya calling Urushihara's name.

Urushihara opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling.

_Did I fall asleep again?_

"It's time to eat." Ashiya said.

"Right...I heard you." Urushihara mumbled as he sat up and then slid the cabinet door open. Ashiya glanced at him with a worried expression before sitting next to the table in the middle of the room. At that moment, Urushihara noticed that the master of the house was back.

"Oh, Maou. You came back already." Urushihara said emotionlessly as he walked to the dinner table and sat himself down opposite Maou.

"Yeah." Maou casually replied as he picked up his chopsticks. "I'm digging in."

And so the three demons started having their dinner. About ten awkward minutes went by without anyone saying anything. The only sound that could be heard was that of chopsticks knocking against the bowls and the chewing of food.

Ashiya was throwing nervous glances between Urushihara and Maou. Just when Maou was halfway done with his food, he started talking.

"Oh right, Chi-chan told me something interesting today." Maou said in a somewhat nonchalant matter.

Urushihara didn't respond, fully expecting Asihya to respond to Maou's statement, until he realised that Ashiya was not responding either. Instead he kept glancing at Urushihara from the corner of his eye. Confused at Ashiya' strange behaviour, Urushihara turned to look at Maou and Maou continued talking.

"Apparently her school's janitor heard some strange noises in the school's attic a few months back."

Urushihara visibly stiffened.

"Chi-chan and her friend went to investigate and they found some snack wrappers and stuff there." Maou seemed to be observing the fallen angel's expression as he said that.

"Oi. You should tell Sasaki to stop doing weird things like that…it could be dangerous." Urushihara said with a forced laugh.

"You and Olba were staying there right?"

Ashiya's mouth opened like he was going to say something to Maou after those words left Maou's mouth but he decided that he should not break the tension.

Unexpectedly, Urushihara did not deny Maou's claims. Instead he continued eating another mouthful of rice before casually answering,

"Yeah. We stayed there. You can't expect us to sleep in the streets right? "

Maou seemed to be taken aback by the callous answer but continued asking.

"There were signs of a fight there. Chi-chan showed me an image where the wall got damaged by a magic attack."

Now, Urushihara stopped eating. He was clearly affected by the statement.

"There was even a recording. Recorded by the janitor who was on cleaning duty at that time. "

"A recording?"

"I don't have it with me because my phone doesn't have any data transfer function. But...I heard it. It was the Ente Isla language. And that was your voice and Olba's."

"What's so strange about that? I did say we were staying there. And you can't expect us to get along right from the start."

"He was threatening to kill you!" Maou said sharply, agitated that Urushihara was treating the entire thing like it was nothing serious.

"Like I said! You can't expect me to get along with the enemy that easily!" Urushihara raised his voice, agitated as well.

Urushihara stood up but Ashiya pulled his wrist, motioning for him to sit down.

"Demon King-sama is speaking. Sit down, Lucifer." Ashiya said in a low voice.

"Don't pull ranks on me now, Alsiel. We're all just measly humans now!" Urushihara retorted, pulling his wrist out of Ashiya's grasp.

**"Lucifer, sit down."** Maou growled in their native tongue.

The fallen angel glared at the Demon King unhappily but he still complied, reluctantly.

Maou let out a sigh and went back to using Japanese.

"Fine. Never mind about what you did when you entered Japan. "

"Great." Urushihara replied sarcastically.

"I want to know what happened after Emi defeated you."

"What? Why the hell do you need to know that?!"

Ignoring Urushihara's questions, Maou continued with his list of things he wanted answered.

"What did Olba tell you? Why did he help you? And…did the church…or whoever Olba was with torture you for information? "

Maou took a deep breath when he said the last statement.

"Heh. What gave you the sick idea that they did such a thing?" Urushihara laughed bitterly.

"Ashiya said you were having nightmares. Just now in fact."

Urushihara glared at Ashiya. Ashiya just said calmly,

"Demon King-sama would have found out about the bruised knuckle sooner or later. I had to tell him."

"And so what, Maou? Does it matter to you even if they did? Or is this just some attempt to fulfil your morbid curiosity?"

Urushihara's voice was cracking now.

"Of course it matters. I am your king and your master, I want to know what happens to my subordinates."

**"Satan Jacob, don't forget that you were only a blasted brat when I met you. I taught you how to fight, I taught Alsiel how to read and write, don't assume you have power over me."** Urushihara was furious and his eyes were glowing ablaze.

**"Precisely because you did all those for us which is why I want to know!"** It was Maou's turn to stand from his seat.

Urushihara suddenly had flashes of images of cloaked men pinning him to the ground holding large bone needles in front of his face. They were laughing and dishonoring his name and status.

"_Filthy sinner! Count your blessings that someone is even bothering to cleanse you!"_

**ENOUGH!**

Now was Ashiya's turn to raise his voice. Which was something he rarely did after landing in Japan. Urushihara's thoughts snapped back to the current situation. Maou glanced at Ashiya with a pleading look in his eyes but did not say anything.

"Demon King-sama. I know you are worried but it is obvious that Lucifer does not want to talk about it."

Maou looked at Urushihara who was gripping his own hands tightly and shaking. Maou sat down and sighed, massaging his temples.

"You're right. I'm just worried. I just...feel guilty for sending you to the Western Continent. If I didn't do that…Emi wouldn't have struck you down and…" Maou said. He was hesitating between his sentences.

"If you didn't send me, it could have been Ashiya or Adramelech. Well, not that I care if you sent Maracoda."

"Urushihara..."

"What's done is done. How can you be King if you keep getting hung up about such trivial things. It's my own fault for getting defeated and deceived."

Then Urushihara stood up and put his dishes in the sink and then walked to the cabinet and opened the door.

"If it provides you with any comfort, because of what you've done, I'm alive and with everyone right now."

With that, he crawled into the cabinet and shut the door.

After the soft sound of the cabinet door closing, all was silent within the apartment.

Then Ashiya spoke up softly.

"Well, that went better than expected."

Maou didn't reply and continued eating in silence.

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><p><strong>Moko-chan<strong>: That's it for now. Once you start writing angst…it flows a long way hahaha. Hmm…we didn't forget about their next door neighbour did we?

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><p><strong><span>Omake<span>**

Alas = Ramus toddled over to Emi who was watching television and tugged on her night dress.

"Mama, phone." Alas =Ramus pointed in the direction of the dining table where the Hero had left her mobile phone.

Emi looked in the same direction and got up from the sofa. She walked to the dining table and picked up her vibrating phone.

"Thanks, Alas=Ramus, I didn't notice I forgot to put it on Ringtone mode."

"You're welcome!" The little girl chirped and grinned.

Emi looked at the screen, it was Suzuno.

_Eh...why would she be calling at this hour? Don't tell me that the Demon King…?!_

Emi hurriedly answered the call and quickly exclaimed,

"What is it Suzuno?! Is the Demon King doing something suspicious?"

"...uh...uh…nope." The person on the other side stuttered a bit.

"Eh...hello…Suzuno? Something wrong?" Emi frowned, confused. It was rare for the inquisitor to be so flustered unless she encountered some newfound technology or at least according to her was newfound technology.

"Umm...Emilia, if you don't mind...can you talk, just talk to me...about anything?"

"Huh?"

"Like that bear you like, or the news, or what you did with Alas= Ramus today...anything!" Suzuno sounded desperate.

"Umm...Suzuno? You alright?"

"Anything so I don't have to hear what the demons are talking about!" Suzuno was whispering but sounded like she was close to screaming.

"They're…not talking about…something perverted, are they?" Even Emi thought it was unlikely because when it comes to women, Maou would take the trophy of being the ultimate herbivore, Ashiya, well, Ashiya might be crowned champion as well. As for Urushihara, the most perverted thing he did was dropping a GPS tracker into her bag which honestly, wasn't anything much.

"If it's just that, I would have smacked their heads with a frying pan already!"

Emi paused, trying hard to think about what other topics the demons could talk about that would disturb Suzuno so much. If it was plans for conquering the world, she was sure that Suzuno would have her ear pressed against the walls and taking notes. Then she heard shouting in unmistakably Ente Isla language.

"Are…they arguing?" Emi asked with caution in her voice.

"They argue with each other once in a while anyway. I won't be bothered about something as trivial as that!"

"Then what are they…."

"It's something too serious for me to be listening too. I might start empathizing with them! So please…just have a conversation so I don't have to listen!"

"Uh…ok. Then…On today's headline news…."

Alas=Ramus tilted her head, curious as to why Emi had started talking like an anchorwoman.

**END**


End file.
